Cross-posted at Montclair SocioBlog.
People who design men’s rooms seem to have the working assumption that men are sexist pigs. Those urinals that seem to mimic sex (in Lisa’s pimp-my-urinal post here) illustrate the sexist part – ideas that are important mostly outside the men’s room. But inside the men’s room, it’s the pig half of the phrase that’s important. Men can be slobs, especially at the urinal.
At airports, for example, jet lagged travelers, men at least, tended to be, how shall we put it, careless? aimless?
What to do?
Americans tend to frame problems in moralistic terms. If something is wrong, drug use for example, punish the wrongdoers. And if that doesn’t work, make the penalties even harsher. Applied to the problem of spillage and splash in the men’s room, we might expect to see signs warning: “No Spillage or Spraying. Penalty up to $500 fine.”
The Dutch have a more practical approach, more focused on solving a problem than on punishing evil. The Dutch also have a reputation for cleanliness. Years ago, when the men’s rooms at the Amsterdam airport were looking and smelling like, well, like men’s rooms, Schilpol Schiphol, the company that runs the Amsterdam airport, looked into the problem. And the problem was that most men weren’t looking. They simply didn’t watch where they were going. So Schiphol came up with a simple and non-punitive solution: a fly to draw the user’s attention.
The idea was that men would aim for the fly – the stream would go from one fly to another (I’m sure this pun doesn’t work in Dutch) – and the men’s room would stay cleaner.
It worked. A study by Schiphol’s social science team found that fly urinals had an 80% reduction in spillage. Some years after that, JFK hired Schiphol to run the International Arrivals Building there. So now at JFK too, the urinals have the target flies. At the Newark airport, I saw urinals with a cartoon-like bee (a realistic bee might have might have triggered a counterproductive startle and flinch).
More recently, urinal targets have gotten even more playful. For the Europeans, there’s soccer.
Good, clean fun.
Jay Livingston is the chair of the Sociology Department at Montclair State University. You can follow him at Montclair SocioBlog or on Twitter.
Comments 68
miga — June 16, 2011
The urinals outside the imperial palace in Kyoto have a flame inside them. There's a message encouraging you to "put out the fire."
Zula — June 16, 2011
Maaaan, I wish there were equivalents of these kinds of things for those of us who don't have penises. Though I suppose trying to aim for a field goal while squatting would just make us messier, thus defeating the purpose.
Gomi — June 16, 2011
I've seen urinal cakes with targets on them for years, here in the US. I don't think they've ever gotten the publicity and the weight behind them to get companies to seek them out, but same principle.
Yrro — June 16, 2011
If you really want to make these effective, have them keep and post a high score.
Ted — June 16, 2011
At the elementary school where my mom teaches, one teacher there has a bucket of cheerios next to the toilet for the kids to throw a few in before they go to aim at.
Grizzly — June 16, 2011
An effective, inexpensive, inoffensive and fun solution to a problem is a beautiful thing.
Grizzly — June 16, 2011
By the way, regarding the "men can be slobs" comment; I think its safe to assume that if women had to pee the same distance, towards the smaller target that men are given, they would be just as slovenly.
Danny — June 16, 2011
Oddly enough I actually saw on an episode of Manswers a year or so ago. It would seem that there are studies out there that show giving men a target actually increases accuracy, therefore less mess.
Michele — June 16, 2011
Men? Really? What bothers me is that it seems more like these are geared toward children who can't be bothered or are incapable of focusing for 30 seconds. I've used candy & stickers for my daughter as potty training incentives. Do we need to stock these, too in men's rooms? Men are all up in arms about the recent spate of ads portraying them as dolts. If you want to be treated like an adult, start acting like one.
Meera — June 16, 2011
I think the 'target' idea is a good one, though I disagree with using the image of a living being (like a fly) as the target -- that surely sends the wrong message (especially to young people), naturalizing the idea that it's okay to harm/kill real creatures.
And, yes, women's public bathrooms can be awful. It's even worse when you have mobility challenges (as I do), and you have fewer stall options and/or less choice about the surfaces in the stall with which your body comes into contact.
Tse — June 16, 2011
Quick note, our national airport is called Schiphol, not Schilpol.
Mary — June 16, 2011
The name of the airport is SCHIPHOL. Not "Schilpol".
And no, the 'fly' pun doesn't work in Dutch.
Horatiorama — June 16, 2011
(Very nice sex/national stereotypes/generalisations.) What I find more interesting is: Why doesn't the generalised urinal user look at what he is doing? What do men focus at instead? I'd bet it is the grout between the bathroom tiles (or the advertisement on the wall). Do men feel uncomfortable looking at their penis or a fluid coming out of the own body? Maybe one should put up signs saying: "It is okay to look at your dick here." (Maybe you don't need to make peeing a contest or to create some other excuse for looking down on you in public at all...)
GC — June 16, 2011
I've long thought a urinal version of the carnival game where you use a squirt gun to hit a target, racing to pop a balloon/fill a bank of lights might be fun.
Peter Moskos — June 16, 2011
Men might be slobs and we may have bad aim, but in my jobs cleaning both mens' and womens' bathrooms, generally it's the ladies' room that is much less clean.
uh...clem — June 17, 2011
i find squatting to pee quite easy, although i first had to overcome my mother's indoctrination about a man who squats to pee. it's easier than you might think because you don't really have to turn around and back onto the toilet first like females do. just sit facing the tank and let it go.
of course the main thing i do nowadays, living alone as i do, is just piss in the sink. it's about the right height and cleaning the sink off just takes two or three little cups of water from the tap. really -- what's unsanitary about it -- a toilet relies on a trap and so does a sink. and think of all the water you save by not having to flush the toilet. I admit to having some great bouts of laughter trying to imagine how a woman would finesse this, though.
Carolyn Dougherty — June 17, 2011
There are 18th century chamber pots with bee images in them--the pun there is Latin (apis=a piss).
Aoirthoir — June 17, 2011
Am I the only one that missed the title entirely?
What great f'n title.
Ty — June 17, 2011
OK... Two things.
(1) Schipol is the name of the airport. It's not the name of the company that runs it. It's named after Fort Schiphol.
(2) There are A LOT of urinals, everywhere around the world that have a marking like the fly. You inventing this story about the Dutch cleanliness and "non-punitive" whatever... well, it's interesting, but has very little to do with reality.
Many urinals have flies or targets in them because that is the OPTIMAL place to piss... reducing "splashback" to keep the urine in the receptacle instead of on your trousers, hands, penis, floor. It has nothing to do with the man's attention or lack thereof. If he aims in the wrong spot, you get splashback. It's geometry, not human behavior.
The fact that you haven't seen these before you went to Amsterdam suggests you don't pee in public very often -- and suggests nothing about the Dutch.
(That being said, the bathrooms in Schipol are basically amazing and, in addition to the mini-Rijksmuseum, really make a layover quite pleasant.)
dave kleinschmidt — June 19, 2011
It is UNCANNY to me how compelling the urinal bees are. I cannot help but aim at one if it's there. Totally great.
ilovemycereal — June 21, 2011
Omg I just read this and I'm so tickled. It always amuses me when I hear of the trial and tribulations of having a penis.
Evilbunnytoo — July 1, 2011
The fly urinal was reported on at least four years years ago, but here is a link to a 2009 story about this - http://boingboing.net/2009/12/21/why-flies-were-chose.html